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SUMMARY
The post-Cold War international landscape has witnessed not only dramatic changes in the types of conflict and humanitarian crisis, but also a change in the nature of conflict management strategies. Several nations around the world continue to gravitate from centralized collective security, under the UN, towards decentralized peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and humanitarian operations undertaken by regional organizations. These organizations have developed new and robust mechanisms for the management of threats to peace and security in their respective regions. ECOWAS’s quest for peace and stability in the West African sub-region led to the formation of ECOMOG; an ad hoc force established in 1990 to deal with the insecurity that followed the collapse of state in Liberia. The force was later used to control several of the region’s conflicts. ECOWAS peace initiatives are arguably deeply flawed, however, as the organization lacks an institutionalized crisis prevention and management mechanism. Consequently, ECOWAS peace initiatives encountered many problems, and hence failed to achieve the much needed peace and stability. Conscious of the fact that sustainable development cannot be achieved in an atmosphere devoid of peace; ECOWAS leadership committed itself to promoting a lasting peace in the sub-region through a mechanism for collective security and peace. This commitment eventually led to the adoption of the Protocol relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and security.
